…he’s gone off on his fifth holiday in as many months.First there was Cornwall back in spring.Then there was a mini-break to Granada.Then there was Ibiza.Then there was Tuscany, where the millionaire eventually remembered to tip the waitress.And this week he’s gone back to Cornwall.From whence he has returned to London, briefly, to discuss the end-game in Libya before going back to his beach.I’d love to say all this gallivanting is doing the nation a disservice, but I’ve racked my brains and can’t think of anything much that would be improved by this man giving it his close attention.I can’t say I’m completely relaxed about having a Prime Minister paid £142,500 a year to do very little of any worth. I can’t help thinking he’s an Earth version of Zaphod Beeblebrox, the Douglas Adams character who was made President of the Universe purely to distract attention from the people who were really in charge.But I suppose him being utterly disengaged – from the electorate, the nation’s wants and needs, the nuclear button – can only be better than having someone so dim he can’t open a bottle of wine without an embolism actually making decisions on our behalf.
Coalition
Now, watch this drive…
“Fair play is one traditional British value we have always admired. And one we fear is increasingly at risk.”
A slowly growing sense of hopelessness and impending doom
Story #1: London’s burning. Again.
Story #2: The markets are in freefall and various economies are failing. Again.
Story #3: There’s been a massive increase in crime in rural areas since the recession started.
I don’t know what story #4 was on the BBC’s early evening news yesterday because I switched off at that point.
Each of the stories was presented in isolation, with fuck all by way of analysis or thought apart from a flash of Stephanie Flanders’ revolting green skirt.
It’s all linked, of course, and none of it is remotely surprising for those with half-an-inch of long-term memory. It happened in the 80s during a recession. It happened during the 90s in a recession. Just because we didn’t have a recession for 15 years doesn’t mean we should raise an eyebrow that the slash and burn approach to economics adopted by PBD and Gideon have resulted in exactly the same social upheaval that occurred when That Bloody Woman did the same thing three decades ago.
There are only two differences now.
First, rolling news channels have been invented. They’ve got to fill all that airtime somehow. The riots of the 80s just got ten minutes at the start of the evening news bulletin. Now it’s all riots, all the time. Breaking news is the new light entertainment.
Second, our leaders – the people in whom apparently sane and rational individuals were inexplicably prepared to place their trust just over a year ago – were absent. Whatever other flaws she had (and I think she had a couple), you can’t imagine a complete vacuum in Downing Street when That Bloody Woman was in charge. Even Bliar and Arrivederci Gordon realised some bugger had to hold the fort.
Everybody deserves a holiday. Even PBD and Gideon. (Or, more accurately, their families.) But, in real life, everybody in my department is not allowed to go on holiday at the same time. It is shameful beyond comprehension that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary and the Mayor of London were all on holiday at the same time.
And I notice Chauncey Gardiner was on his hols, too, only deigning to come back from Devon’s Adenoid Extraction Recovery Unit AFTER PBD had announced he was getting on a plane to fly back from Tuscany. That tells you everything you need to know about our Leader (sic) of the Opposition.
What was our Coalition administration’s stunning Plan B while everyone topped up their tans? William Hague and Vince Cable. The former, a man whose leadership credentials have already been roundly rejected by the British electorate in a plebiscite; the latter, a man whose sole achievement over the past 15 months has been to demonstrate his lack of temperamental suitability for ministerial office. It shows how well the Don’t Panic Double Act went that first Nick Clegg, then Theresa May and then finally PBD dragged their sorry arses back to work like a half-hearted zombie invasion.
Gideon remains absent, soaking up the Californian sun. Rome burns but it’s nothing to do with him, guv.
Of course, the real salt is yet to be rubbed into the wound. Wait for it – it’s coming: the emergency police powers. We’re inches away from a police state. But then maybe that’s what our politicians have wanted all along.
And one final thing. What the fuck has this got to do with the Olympics? How many people were murdered in Los Angeles in 1983? Or Beijing in 2007? Grow a fucking pair. If you want to try to shift attention away from the fact that you have wrought this on yourselves by pursuing exclusionary policies, fine. But some of us would have preferred all along if the £9.3 billion or more of public money being spent on the Olympics had been spent pursuing inclusionary policies.
Not for the first time, the Minister quotes with approval Tom McRae:
Rioters of London, remember to leave some real estate standing so mortgage companies have a product to deny you.
I wish the poor shopkeepers luck in claiming on their insurance or getting small business loans. The wrong buildings are on fire.
(Thanks to Radio Nixon for the post title.)
You decide if you think he has a point…
Dupe process
Yesterday Ofcom pleased its political masters by repealing laws passed by Parliament. It may have repealed a dodgy law, but that’s beside the point: it’s not how our system is supposed to work. No matter how dodgy a law may be, it is not a quango’s job to repeal it. It’s the job of legislators. And a powerful regulator should be independent, and not heel to its political masters – although anyone who followed the history of the regulator will permit themselves a hollow cackle at that principle.
Ofcom repealed Sections 17 and 18 of the Digital Economy Act by expressing no more than an opinion: the justification to support that opinion is absent from its report. Ofcom could have set out its case in terms of explaining the legal framework, for example, but it didn’t. It could have argued the costs and benefits of each approach to web-blocking – but it didn’t, it hadn’t even attempted to do that kind of empirical research.
Instead, on page 43, we learn that: “It is our current belief that the blocking of discrete URLs, or web addresses, is not practical or desirable as a primary approach.” What’s practical is not defined, what’s “desirable” is well beyond Ofcom’s remit.
Imagine the uproar if a quango had interposed itself to block significant primary legislation: Britain’s entry into the Common Market for example, or the minimum wage. All are quite complicated issues, after all. The blame isn’t entirely Ofcom’s; the regulator was permitted to do this because ministers wanted to find a way to bury the Sections without Parliament formally repealing them. Again, this is dishonest, and not the way laws are made or unmade. Ed Vaizey has been trying to get industry to agree to self-regulation which would allow him to announce their imminent repeal (most likely in the next Communications Act).
The Conservatives came to power vowing to abolish Ofcom, and declaring war on what they saw as Leftish academic poseurs, and business-hostile bureaucrats. They now seem to be at the mercy of all three. How on Earth did that happen?
Did the countenance divine shine forth upon our clouded hills?
So, a year on from the public school wank-a-thon in the Rose Garden, how’s that ConservativeCoalition government working out for y’all?
Still, at the least the clear, decisive alternative is so much better.
30 Things The Minister Did On His Sabbatical
- Learned more than he ever wanted to know about multiple myeloma, bone marrow transplants, quadruple heart bypass surgery and the work of cardiac intensive care nursing staff.
- Spent a lot of time driving up and down the M1.
- Lost 70lbs.
- Put 28lbs back on.
- Lost another 21lbs.
- Put another 18lbs back on.
- Lost another 14lbs.
- Joined the Labour Party in the hope that the new leader wouldn’t be a breathtakingly clueless wanker of the first water.
- Resigned from the Labour Party due to the breathtaking cluelessness of its new leader, Edward Samuel Miliband, Wanker of the First Water.
- Helped fund four albums (by Sophie Madeleine, Emmy The Great, Terra Naomi and a work-still-in-progress by Kat Edmondson). Girls with guitars, eh?
- Been very impressed indeed by and become very well acquainted with the music of John Grant, The Wellspring, Sun Kil Moon, School Of Seven Bells, Alicia Witt, The National, Pete Yorn, Hannah Peel and A Fine Frenzy.
- Bought Tom McRae‘s back catalogue. Some fucker’s got to feed his pigs.
- Watched a lot of House, Wallander and Community, while wishing I lived in the States so I could watch more of Craig Ferguson.
- Got an iPad.
- Bought my godson his first iPod.
- Waved a fond farewell to Chesterfield FC’s “atmospheric” old stadium on Saltergate.
- Watched in open-mouthed amazement as Chesterfield FC won the Fourth Division title in their first season in their really rather fabulous new stadium.
- Bought a couple of domain names I like a lot.
- Almost completely deGoogleified my life. Fuck, that felt good.
- Discovered and greatly approved of Mighty Leaf Teas.
- Got even more anal about fonts and typefaces.
- Fell in love some fabulous Mac software – Alfred, Flow, Hype, iA Writer, Sparrow.
- Installed a PowerLine network at the Ministerial Residence. (I’m sure the Minister’s Wife would have preferred me to redecorate the staircase and landing, but you have to pace yourself at my age.)
- Discovered that Nerina Pallot is a seriously top lass. (Her new album’s out next week.)
- Fell for Pop Culture Happy Hour. Glen Weldon is now my personal hero. (Mistyped that last sentence. It originally said “Glen Weldon is now my personal herp”. I think Glen Weldon would approve.)
- Had a Twitter exchange with Nicky Fucking Campbell in which I was so civil I did not once call him “Nicky Fucking Campbell”.
- Saw several David Ford gigs (travelling 150 miles through a snowstorm to attend one) and read David Ford’s book, I Choose This. Was not disappointed once.
- Had brief work-related journeys to Miami, Puerto Rico, San Francisco, Paris, Munich, Madrid and Stockholm. Didn’t really enjoy them but Stockholm is lovely (as are its inhabitants).
- Came up with an idea for Coalition Cabinet Toilet Paper, because wiping my arse is the only thing that shower of unmitigated cock cheese is fit for.
- Generally despaired rather a lot.
So we’re back. Buckle up: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.